He resorted to email after Alamuddin, playing hard to get, refused to give him her phone number.

“It was all very tongue in cheek, but it got the ball rolling,’’ a friend of the couple told the newspaper.

The deal was sealed with an engagement ring, featuring a seven-carat diamond, that reportedly cost Clooney more than $600,000.

Alamuddin, 36, was voted “the hottest barrister in London’’ last year. She and her 53-year-old fiancé, who once pledged never to marry again after splitting from his first wife, are expected to make their home in London.